


Good Samaritan

by lunarlychallenged



Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Why do I keep writing background characters when I don't know their personalities?, good question, there is no answer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2019-04-05 08:56:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14040684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunarlychallenged/pseuds/lunarlychallenged
Summary: You didn't need to pick pockets anymore, but the look on Mush's face when you gave it to the newsies was more than reason enough.





	Good Samaritan

The first time you went to the Lodge after - well, after, Jack was suspicious. You tried to hold your hands steady as he looked at the small box of dollar bills, coins, watches, and jewelry, but the displeasure on his face made you want to fidget.

“We don’t want charity,” he said quietly.

“I ain’t giving you charity,” you replied. “I’s giving you stuff I don’t need.”

“We don’t need your castoffs, Y/N.”

“These ain’t my castoffs, per se,” you said, trailing off. “They come from a lot of people.”

His eyes narrowed, but looking at your nice clothes and clean face, he still seemed hesitant to think that you were dropping from your station. “Thank the donors for me.”

You grinned then. He was trying so hard to act unfamiliar, but he knew the truth as well as you did. “Can’t. You never hit the same sucker twice, Jack. Everybody knows that.”

He blinked at you, looking caught between a smile and a scowl. “Y/N, you can’t-”

You flicked your fingers at him in a quick wave, already backing away to go home. “See you around. I’ll be back.”

A few days later, after looking closely, you saw that some of the boys had new shoelaces and vests. It wasn’t much, but you were happy to see that your not-so-charitable giving had helped some.

 

You walked quietly up the Lodge steps, having decided to skip over the formality of knocking on the door. You did knock on the door leading to all of the beds, of course, not wanting to catch sight of anything unsavory

(except maybe wanting to catch sight of something savory)

that might get back to your father. Or, worse still, that might get to other people who could ruin things for your father. The two of you had been lucky, and he would kill you if you seemed unappreciative.

It was Mush that answered, cap-less and in an undershirt. Maybe you should have blushed; his cheeks went a little red as he looked grabbed for his vest. “Y/N, hey, I wasn’t expecting-”

“I’s not supposed to be here,” you said, cutting him off. “I’s got some business.”

“With the newsies? Looking for a pretty assistant?” he joked.

You grinned at him. He had always been your favorite, though you didn’t think he knew it. He was a cheery kid, and he was easily impressed. When he saw you doing street magic to make a few bucks, he always stopped to watch. When he saw you picking the pockets of the audience, he made sure to sell papes with humorously over the top headlines to steal the attention of anybody who might have caught you.

You never got caught, but that was beside the point.

“If I’s looking for a pretty assistant, you’s just the boy,” you teased. 

He laughed. Mush liked to call himself the muscle, and though he certainly seemed strong enough to fit the bill, his bark was usually worse than his bite. He would deny fitting the bill of a pretty assistant, but he certainly looked pretty enough to you.

You shook your head a little; you really had come on business. “Hey, Mush, you hungry?”

He gave you a funny smile. It was an old smile, and it made your heart ache. You had the same smile and you knew that most of the other newsies did too. Despite the lighthearted relationships they all had, poverty and loss had aged those kids. It wasn’t right that childhood was pushed aside; it was like being punished for being poor. Maybe they could be a little less poor because of you.

“We’s always hungry, Y/N. What kinda question is that?”

You reached into your pockets and pulled out handfuls of coins. On reflex, Mush put out his hands to catch the coins that slipped through your fingers, eyes wide. 

“I got a little extra cash,” you said. “Want it? Treat the boys to something nice.”

He gave you a strange look. “What do you mean, extra cash?”

You shrugged. You didn’t like to sound ungrateful for the life you lived, so it was easier to not talk about it at all. “So, you want it or not?”

He grinned. His eyes were big and awed when he looked at the money. Realistically, it wasn’t even that much. It was just dimes and quarters that you snagged from pockets as you walked down the street, but it was still more than these kids made for weeks of work. “Of course we want it. What kind of question is that?”

Your heart went a little, well, mushy at the look on his face. He really was a nice boy, and you knew too many boys who weren’t nice to ignore it. “I’ve gotta go; my dad’ll be waiting. He thinks I went on a walk, but I didn’t tell him I was walking all the way to Manhattan.”

It wasn’t that far; you had walked farther everyday for years, but your dad thought it was too far for a lady to walk by herself.

You hoped that entering the house quietly would be enough to keep your dad from noticing how late it had gotten, but he had waited up for you. 

“It’s not safe to be out this late,” he said. He gave you a disapproving frown, not because he thought it wasn’t safe for you, but because if you were out that late, it hadn’t been a safe day for somebody else.

“Sorry, Dad,” you said sheepishly. “I got sidetracked in the corner store. I ran into Mr. Walters, and you know how much he likes to talk-”

“What did you buy at the corner store?”

You held his gaze. Confidence while lying was one of your skills, though you supposed that it wasn’t a skill to boast about. “I bought a soda. I drank it there.”

He gave a grim smile. “With what money? I didn’t give you any, and you don’t have a job.”

There it was. It didn’t matter how confident you looked, since he already knew the truth. 

“Y/N,” he said miserably. “Why do you keep doing this? We don’t need money. Why are you still stealing it? Don’t you care about how it will look when you get caught? Don’t you care about the shame you bring our family every time you act like a child living on the street?”

“I’s not - I won’t get caught,” you said, stumbling to correct yourself. You’d had enough boxed ears to try to talk properly around your father and his friends. “And just because I don’t live on the street anymore doesn’t mean they won’t look at me like I still do. We have money, but money doesn’t matter to these people if we don’t have the right pedigree.”

You walked to bed, head held high and heart sinking low. You shouldn’t have talked to him like that. You knew it, and you knew that you would be walking a fine line for several days, but it was true. You had spent too long on the streets for it to matter that your family had climbed out of the gutter. The gutter was a dirty place, and the muck had stained you in ways that money couldn’t wipe off.

 

There was something strange about seeing the newsies once you weren’t in a boat like theirs. You had never been a newsie yourself, but street kids had a comradery that you sort of missed. You bought a paper from Crutchie, hugging him afterward. It was a tight hug, and you knew that it lasted too long for word of it to not spread around, but you didn’t care. Crutchie gave good hugs, and you sometimes needed to be squeezed until it hurt a little. It made you feel real, though you sometimes did wish you were dreaming after all.

“Miss me that much, Y/N?” He beamed at you, wiggling his eyebrows a little for effect.

“You bet,” you said. You glanced down at his crutch and grinned. “Looking spiffy.”

He lifted it up and grinned. It had been wrapped with fresh tape and looked far cleaner than it had last time you saw it. “A good samaritan has been dropping off some dough. What a sucker, huh?” He elbowed you a little, eyes soft. 

You grinned. “Honestly. A softy like that will never make it in this town.”

He shrugged. “I dunno. They got the newsies to back ‘em up, if they need it.”

Oh. Maybe you really had gone soft, you thought as you rushed away. His words warmed you right to your bones, past all of the calluses and wiry muscle. It warmed you better than the thick hair on your arms from days when you had never gotten enough to eat and had a layer of fur-like hair to make up for the lack of body fat. That wasn’t why you rushed away, though - you didn’t want to be there when Crutchie noticed the dollar you slipped into his pocket while you hugged him. As fun as sneaking things out of pockets was, you took a lot more joy out of slipping things into them.

 

“Y/N, you can’t avoid the question forever,” Mush said.

You had brought him more money, purposefully showing up when you knew he would open the door. Something about seeing him so ruffled - good Lord, you would gladly add to his disorder yourself. He insisted on taking you out for ice cream with his cut of the money, though you planned to slip more money into his pocket to make up for it. 

He had been eagerly eating the cherry off of his sundae when he asked you why you still picked pockets. You tried to change the subject by offering him your cherry, but he wasn’t deterred.

You had been so, so poor for a long time. Your father had a temper that led to him getting in a fight with the owner of the factory he worked at. The word spread, and soon he couldn’t get a decent job anywhere in the city. You had nimble fingers and and a quick smile, so you had been quick to pick up close up magic. You would play crowds for hours, sneaking a coin here and there to cushion the money people gave freely. You had known Mush and the other boys very well, since you worked the same streets they did.

All of the newsies - all of the poor kids, for that matter - knew that you and your father had come into some money. Some distant, unknown family member had died, and since they had been all alone, the two of you had been the next of kin. Your father, who had been very harsh indeed when you didn’t make enough money off of magic and theft, was thrilled about the newfound fortune. You had been too, at first.

You should have been relieved about going to school. You should have delighted in having polite company and clothes that fit. You should have thrown yourself wholeheartedly into the new life, but you hadn’t been able to. There was some part of you that just wasn’t cut out for it.

“I can’t turn my head off,” you told Mush. His lips were stained red from your syrupy cherry and you had to look away to calm the sudden heat in your core. “There’s this part of me that notes every entrance and exit to a room; that notices when people pat their pockets to check their wallets; that identifies the easiest targets and knows how to soak them. And that part needs to act, Mush.”

“But you don’t,” he said. “You’s got money, so you don’t have to take more.”

“Don’t I?” You ate a spoonful of ice cream, eyes fluttering closed as you savored the bite. Though you could buy dozens of desserts, and you had done so over the months since you had found yourself in stifling comfort, you never got used to how rich food could be. Mush was smiling softly when you opened your eyes again. “I can’t stop thinking about taking money. I’m always scared that I won’t be able to eat or that I won’t have something warm for the winter, and the thoughts nag until I take a few coins. I can’t stop, and I don’t really want to. I might not need it, but all of you do.”

He frowned, but couldn’t exactly fight you on it. All of the boys had stolen during dark times. Times when papes weren’t selling and people weren’t feeling generous; times when water was the only thing in their bellies for days at a time. Maybe it seemed more immoral for you to take money you didn’t need, but you weren’t being greedy. You were being kind.

“You’s in school, right?” he finally asked.

You nodded; you had been sent to school to learn everything people five years younger than you had already mastered. You looked a little foolish, but you were happy to understand things that everybody else took for granted. 

“You can balance my books someday,” he said with a crooked smile. Mush had dreamed for years of opening a “juke joint.” He said that it would be the most happening juke joint in New York.

A slow smile spread over your face, and Mush blinked, dazed. “I will,” you said. “You can work the customers and I’ll make sure they have a joint to come to.”

He stuck out a hand, and you looked at it with surprise. He meant it. Mush wanted to start a business, and he wanted you to be a part of it. It was, of course, unlikely that it would ever happen unless his life totally changed, but he was still saying that he was ready to keep you around for years and years. He stuck it out a little farther when you hesitated. “No stealing from ‘em, though,” he prompted.

You shook his hand, sure that his long fingers could feel your racing heart where they brushed your wrist. “You and I were always good partners,” you commented.

He blinked innocently at you. “I have no idea what you’s talking about,” he said lightly.

You grinned, giving his hand one last squeeze. He always refused to own up to the fact that he hung around you to make sure no boys bothered you while you worked. If he knew that you sometimes talked about amazing headlines and pointed people over to him to buy papes, he never mentioned it. 

When the sun started to set, he insisted on walking you home. 

“You don’t have to,” you protested. 

His eyes were dark with exhaustion and his steps were a little slow, but he shook his head. “I do, and you know it.” He offered you an arm, and you hardly hesitated at all before taking it. 

He whistled while you walked, stopping to twirl you under the streetlamp by your house to the tune of “You’ve Been a Good Wagon But You Done Broke Down.”

You laughed, and when he twirled you back to his chest, you pressed a quick kiss to his cheek.

His eyes widened and the tune faltered. You wondered for a second if you had made a mistake, but looking at his lovely eyes and the way his mouth slackened, you didn’t think that you had. Even if it could never happen again, at least you had done it once.

“What was that for?”

You smiled. “For being you.”

His lips curled in response. “Being me ain’t much.”

“Being you is plenty,” you scoffed. “A kiss on the cheek doesn’t cover it.”

“What would cover it?” His face was still very near yours, and his eyes flickered down to your lips. 

There was a second where time stopped. In that second, you had time to think. You were standing outside of your house, where your father would be waiting. If he saw, you would be in unspeakable amounts of trouble. If somebody else saw, you would never be taken seriously.

But you had never cared about how you looked to the people who had money, though you had enough money to have to fit in with them. You did not care what they thought of you, but you really cared about how Mush looked at you. He was looking at you, eyes soft and a little scared, and you had seen that look on his face many times over the course of the past few years. It was only when he looked at you, and you thought that maybe you looked at him the same way.

The second ended, and when he pursed his lips a little in disappointment, you leaned in to kiss them. It was quick and soft, over after a second that tasted like cherries and dust and sugar. You let your eyes stay closed for a second to savor the moment. When you opened them, Mush was smiling.

“That almost covers it,” you said. “Almost, but there would have to be a lot more of ‘em.”

“I must be pretty great,” he said. His brow was smooth and unworried. His eyes were bright, and you thought that he looked just his age. Not too old or burdened; not too young or afraid. He looked like a happy boy in his prime, hopeful and eager.

“Yeah,” you agreed, and leaned in to reinforce the idea.

You couldn’t fix things for him. You couldn’t fix things for any of the newsies, and you couldn’t change the way things had been for you. But you could move forward, and starting a juke joint with Mush was just the way to do it.


End file.
